Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Wednesday is typically a light day at the Capitol, but there are a few odds and ends of note:

* VOTE SUPPRESSION: The Republican Party bill to require photo ID at the polls as a means of depressing Democratic turnout is up for a vote today in the Senate. It will pass the Republican-controlled chamber. An effort to amend it awaits in the House. During Senate debate, David Goins reports, Sen. Linda Chesterfield called Bryan King's bill a "backdoor poll tax." No matter. It passed 23-12. Democrats Bruce Maloch and Larry Teague voted for the bill. Democrats are saying that a Republican senator confirmed the obvious on the floor — this bill will help elect Republicans. No video of the Senate, unfortunately. Anybody have a Flipcam?

* GUNS: The bill to allow guns on college campuses (for staff, subject to governing board approval), already passed in the House, came out of a Senate committee this morning.

* RICH BOYS' TOYS: Rep. Prissy Hickerson's bill is headed to a final vote in the Senate. It would eliminate the part of the law that allows cities to restrict operation of golf courts on city streets to the path between homes and golf courses. Why should golf cart transport be limited to the country club environs? Now those prepster hooligans in the Heights can range much farther afield with impunity (already effectively enjoyed).

* COMING ATTRACTIONS — FETUSES, FETUSES AND MORE FETUSES: The House agenda for Thursday includes votes on two bills unconstitutional under federal court precedent because they'd ban many abortions before viability of the fetus — Rep. Andy Mayberry at 20 weeks, Sen. Jason Rapert at 12. Each is bad in its own special way. Mayberry's because it would keep a few dozen women with dreadful medical dilemmas from pursuing all medical options. Rapert's because of its full-frontal deprivation of the rights of women to make a decision three months before any hope of viability. A third bill allows pregnant women to shoot anyone they think is threatening their fetus. It's a castle doctrine bill. No retreat is necessary. Fire when ready, ladies. Dead men tell no tales.

As promised, Rep.-elect Andy Mayberry (R-East End) has filed a bill that would virtually ban all second trimester abortions in Arkansas. /more/

The Governor's office today announced the creation of an "Office of Transformation" along with a new chief officer for the agency, with Gov. Asa Hutchinson saying the goal of the office would be to "drive efficiency" in government and streamline state operations. /more/

No state political party in the modern era has had a more abrupt fall than Arkansas's Democrats /more/

State Rep. David Hillman, an Almyra farmer recently elected as a Democrat to a third term, announced today that he was switching to the Republican Party, giving the GOP 75 of the 100 House seats. /more/

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette's Michael Wickline reported this morning that, for the second time in four years, Republican Rep. Mark Lowery had been cited by the state Ethics Commission for failing to comply with campaign finance reporting law. The minor penalty won't discourage similar in the future. /more/

Why is Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin so unhappy about the Democrats' packing of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee. A self-aggrandizing special interest tax break is why. /more/

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday upheld a lower court ruling that a Ten Commandments monument built with private donations and erected outside the Bloomfield, N.M. City Hall was a constitutional violation. /more/

Hendrix College professor and Times columnist Jay Barth has put together an analysis of the election Tuesday on the demographics that brought Donald Trump and medical marijuana victories in Arkansas.A familiar Republican coalition, plus the now famous less-educated white voter, gave Trump a big win. Marijuana is harder to pin down. /more/

Fidel Castro's death and Donald Trump both raise questions about the future of U.S.-Cuba relations. Also: Tom Cotton is apparently God.

An early open line.

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John Walker, the 79-year-old civil rights lawyer, and his associate, Omavi Shukur, 29, a young lawyer devoted to criminal justice reform, talked to press this afternoon about their arrests Monday by Little Rock police for supposedly obstructing governmental operations in observing and attempting to film a routine police traffic stop. It was a tutorial on sharp views of race, class and governance in Little Rock.

A writer in Cosmopolitan wonders why it took so long for attention to the "disturbingly misogynistic" dimension of the Jim Bob Duggar family.

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Next week a series of meetings on the use of technology to tackle global problems will be held in Little Rock by Club de Madrid — a coalition of more than 100 former democratic former presidents and prime ministers from around the world — and the P80 Group, a coalition of large public pension and sovereign wealth funds founded by Prince Charles to combat climate change. The conference will discuss deploying existing technologies to increase access to food, water, energy, clean environment, and medical care.

Plus, recipes from the Times staff.

Sen. Jason Rapert (R-Conway) was on "Capitol View" on KARK, Channel 4, this morning, and among other things that will likely inspire you to yell at your computer screen, he said he expects someone in the legislature to file a bill to do ... something about changing the name of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport.

So fed up was young Edgar Welch of Salisbury, N.C., that Hillary Clinton was getting away with running a child-sex ring that he grabbed a couple of guns last Sunday, drove 360 miles to the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C., where Clinton was supposed to be holding the kids as sex slaves, and fired his AR-15 into the floor to clear the joint of pizza cravers and conduct his own investigation of the pedophilia syndicate of the former first lady, U.S. senator and secretary of state.

There is almost nothing real about "reality TV." All but the dullest viewers understand that the dramatic twists and turns on shows like "The Bachelor" or "Celebrity Apprentice" are scripted in advance. More or less like professional wrestling, Donald Trump's previous claim to fame.

Longtime KARK anchor Beth Ward died last night from complications of heart surgery, according to a report from THV11.

Rep. Kim Hendren this week filed a bill to prohibits the use of cell phones, pagers, beepers, digital media players, digital cameras, digital game consoles, and digital video or audio recorders for public students during the school day.